The Opportunity to Return
A Very Personal GoFundMe
Dear Dispatch readers,
Last summer, 52 generous individuals contributed to a GoFundMe that enabled me to attend the Rabbinic Torah Seminar at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem (see above photo!).
Despite having no small amount of impostor syndrome, I knew I needed to make the trip. Before I left, I wrote, "I feel certain that attending Hartman will impact and deepen all of my work." It did that and more.
It's an understatement to say that the 10 days I spent in Jerusalem in 2024 were transformative and pivotal for my personal and professional Jewish journeys; when I returned, I applied to and later matriculated in the rabbinical program at the Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR-NY), a pluralistic seminary based in New York.
I continue to weave together the different threads of my work – spiritual, creative, entrepreneurial, and academic.
In May, I will complete a two-year certification program as a Jewish Studio Project Creative Facilitator. I also continue to serve on the Board of the Jewish Community of Amherst, where I am also the Poet in Residence and part-time B'nai Mitzvah Coordinator. In 2024, I published Fierce Encouragement: 201 Writing Prompts for Staying Grounded in Fragile Times, and I remain self-employed as a writing coach.
I am starting school slowly as I juggle work and await federal student loans. During the past seven months, I've successfully completed an intensive Hebrew course through Hebrew Union College and will enroll in Hebrew IA at AJR for the summer term.
I continue to write from the heart weekly on Substack and to publish elsewhere, including a recent piece in the Times of Israel. As the political realities in Israel and America alike face deepening extremism and polycrises, my calling to nurture my connection with Israel – the land and the people – only grows.
The opportunity to return to the Hartman Institute, this time as a rabbinical student, to deepen my relationships with teachers and colleagues from Israel and all over North America this July is immeasurably resonant and relevant.
Thank you so much for considering this request. I'm immensely grateful for your presence in my life and your affirmation and support as I keep moving in this direction. Contributions of any amount will be helpful. All of the funds I raise here will be used to pay for trip-related expenses, including seminar registration, El-Al airfare, 11 nights of room and board, and transportation.
Whether or not you are in a position to give financially, please join me in my prayers for peace, a return of all of the hostages, and a way forward that is rooted in deep listening, wrestling with hard questions, creative process, learning in community, and, most of all, love.
Click to donate:
www.gofundme.com/f/help-jena-return-to-jerusalem
Links to related writing since July 2024:
Wear It (written on route from Tel Aviv to Boston)
September 2 (we will help each other survive)
Becoming a Jew, Becoming a Rabbi (AJR application essay)
My Father's Blessing, My Mother's Stones (a d'var Torah, also forthcoming in the anthology "Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture & Heritage," ed. Diane Gottlieb)
The Oldest App (a poem)
Teshuvah (a dream before Yom Kippur)
How Human of Me How Divine (a poem)
I Have Slept in Many Places (for the Bibas family)
A Bitter Pill (after Mahmoud Khalil's arrest)
I don't see a donate button.